The Key Elements of the Fundraising Cycle Related to the Topic of Choice

Montreal Heart Institute is specialty hospital dedicate to the development of cardiology which was established to offer research and improve healthcare. The hospital has an avenue for research that allows people to make generous donations towards its course to meet the research needs. People are free to give any amount of donations monthly or through organizing events.

The fundraising process takes five main elements that organizations go through when seeking to generate resources for a given course. These steps are identifying the prospects. Educate/cultivate/involve, ask, appreciate and recognize and lastly involve more deeply. As seen in the case of Montreal Heart Institute the first step of identifying prospects entails the organization choosing a course of action that it wants to involve in as seen in this case where the organization focusses on cardiology (Sargeant & Jay, 2004). This means that every organization must have a course of action that it seeks to raise funds for. The next element of the fundraising cycle that then the organization has applied is education and cultivating to make people involved. Montreal Heart Institute educates the public on the role that it does and how people can get involved to change the course of those with the problem (Montreal Heart Institute, 2018). This is then followed by the asking step where the organization requests people to get involved through volunteering or making any form of donation. The role of fundraising is to gather voluntary contributions by requesting donations from individuals, businesses or organizations. After asking for fundraising the last element is appreciating those who participated in the fundraiser through transparency and accountability of the resources garnered (Sargeant & Shang, 2010). Most fundraising issues have lacked the ethical value of transparency since they feel to disclose the sources of their donations and sometimes the amount collected (Mallabone, et al. 2011). This means that organizations are required to account for the resources that they receive from donors or fundraising as a gesture of goodwill.

Diversity entails a set of human practices that recognize the interdependence of humanity through culture and aspects of the natural environment that makes people different from each other. This calls for strategies that do away with discrimination and segregation of people to harness inclusion. Since the organization seeks to collect resources from different types of people, then diversity is the inclusion of all people within the business environment that the organization operates in (Cryder, Loewenstein, & Scheines, 2013). in the case of Montreal Heart Institute, the organization operates a fund drive that is all-inclusive meaning they allow any willing person to volunteer or make donations. The organization does not necessarily target specific individuals but rather requests people to individually volunteer to work with the fund drive. On the other hand, organizations can make their contributions directly or can fund an initiative in the organization. This means that Montreal Heart Institute recognizes the diversity differences within the stakeholders that it works for thus the need to develop ways of recognizing the differences in the population.

Key Features of Diversity Within the Donor Base, Particularly with Respect to Age, Culture, and Gender

The organization has four levels of involvement that people and organizations can participate in. The first level is participating in the events that the organization runs. These events include charity fund drives and organizational fundraisers for a given course of action. Such activities have a target income that needs to be raised and in most cases, the resources required for this level are pegged at a given amount (Sargeant & Shang, 2010). For example, the events are organized and people allowed to buy participation tickets where the funds collected go the specific course of action.

The second level is the volunteer level where individuals and organizations choose to take some responsibility in Montreal Heart Institute projects. This aspect ranges from individual participation in different activities to organizational contributions to fund a certain course of action. For example, individuals can volunteer through giving gifts that are done by the extended family of volunteers. This level is not specific since anything that benefits the organization can be contributed.

Another level is the in memoriam donations where people or organizations are allowed to make financial contributions in memory of a deceased person.  For example, when one loses their loved one, they can make a donation to the hospital that will be used to assist other needs people as the bereaved person celebrates the memory of their lost one. This is done at an individual or organizational level, where the amount of the contribution is not specific.

Another level that once can participate in the organization is taking part in any event that the organization holds. Every year, Montreal Heart Institute holds different levels of events that people are allowed to participate. The events are either corporate or individual based where each party that gets involved in the process seeks to assist the organization raises resources towards improving cardiovascular medicine. For example, the Moslom Foundation donated $2.5 million which will go a long way in meeting the research needs of the organization.

The organization has two major donor, individuals, and organizations. This means that different strategies have to be applied to approach individual donors and organizational donors.

• Develop the right mind attract people who may be willing to contribute or participate in organizational activities.
• Develop a list of areas that people can get involved.
• Develop an event that is easy to bring people together or attract people to participate.
• Set the minimum amount of participation through goods or services that make it easy for people to contribute.
• Roll out the event and announce the proceeds gathered at the end of the event or within the required timeframe.

• Develop the right mind attract organizations who may be willing to contribute or participate in organizational activities.
• Carry out research to determine the major donors in the area of interest.
• Focus on the major gifts that the donor you have identified above gives.
• Present the donation request using soft skills and thank you visits or interview.
• Sometimes you can find someone else to open the door by approaching them in another event to introduce your organization.
• Network your way back to the donor to make a formal request for a donation or participating in an event

The first fundraising used by the Montreal Heart Institute is hosting of events. These include charity walks, campaigns and any activity that can bring different types of people together. These events seek to gather people together to create awareness of the issues that the organization is addressing and how their contribution can assist. This means that the even has to be planned with a purpose through targeting the ideal demography of the population. For example, the organization runs an annual event called “$2 does the heart good” which allows people to contribute a minimum of $2 every year towards the facility. One advantage that this offers is that it allows the organization to bring a larger number of people together thus allowing them to understand the course that the organization is working on. However, this method is limited because it does not guarantee that people will participate in the event or contribute to the course.

Montreal Heart Institute also works with the charity preview Gala which is held annually. The event has an alcohol bar, door prizes, silent auction, hot and cold buffet, and live music performances. The role of the event is to help the six major hospital foundations of the Greater Montreal Area through the resources that are collected. For example, the 208 Gala raised $947,198 in an event that hosted approximately 5000 guests (Montreal Heart Institute 2018, pp. 4). The strength of this method is that the people who attend are those of higher social status who value participation as compared to the resources that they spend (Pezzullo & Rice, 2010). This makes it easy for the fundraiser since it targets the upper-class people of the society who are likely to register higher success. However, the weakness of such events is that they are too expensive to host. For example the event the tickets are sold at higher prizes to raise the required amount which makes it tricky for people to attend. The 20118 Gala ticket was priced at $225 which automatically disqualifies most people.

Conclusion

Therefore, fundraising ethics require organizations to follow a set of steps to achieve the required goals. Although the resources gathered during fundraising belong the receipeint organization is obligated to follow the ethical requirements of fundraising. Montreal Heart Institute raises funds using the required avenues as a way of meeting the ethical requirements of field. This is the reason information on the resources is widely shared to keep the public informed.

References

Cryder, C., Loewenstein, G., & Scheines, R. (2013). The donor is in the details. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 120(1), 15-23.

Mallabone, G., Wyman, K., Lister, D., Veenema, P., Mckinley, P., Jaffer, N., . . . Moreau, L. (2011). Excellence in Fundraising in Canada: The Definitive Resource for Canadian Fundraisers. Paperback.

Montreal Heart Institute. (2018). Get Involved. Retrieved from Montreal Heart Institute. Retrieved November, 23, 2018, from, https://www.icm-mhi.org/en/foundation

Montreal Heart Institute. (2018). Montreal International Auto Show Charity Preview. Retrieved, November, 23, 2018, from Montreal Heart Institute : https://www.icm-mhi.org/en/foundation/events/foundation-events/xth-auto-show-charity-preview

Pezzullo, S., & Rice, J. (2010). Designing a Successful Fund Raising Campaign for Your NGO. Baltimore: International Youth Foundation.

Sargeant, A., & Jay, E. (2004). Building Donor Loyalty. Jossey Bass: San Francisco.

Sargeant, A., & Shang, J. (2010). Fundraising Principles and Practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage .